Take your shovel
shield the light
it burns my skin.

You have unearthed me
when I did not know
I was buried.

Internal sufferings
my home
now brought into

open air.

writhing.

my lashes bleed in fear
I escape — away from myself
the warmth reminds me

my scars shine in the sun

cover me, until I understand.

let's run away and never look back
this place isn't for us
it hurts me—
all these missed connections,
this guarded vulnerability

i never want to come back here
never again—
these memories i buried
keep coming back to haunt me
it hurts so much i can feel it in my bones

i don't want to listen to the wind
as it whispers all its secrets
i don't want to look at this familiar town
as it drips pain like honey
not anymore—

i want nothing to do with these
blood-soaked histories
let's run away—
leave everything behind
in this ****** town where everything hurts

At the end of a relationship,
I think I'm reminded of something.
It's a simple truth really, hidden while we're together.
I hate myself.
And when we were together, I didn't, because you loved me, and you were a part of me, and at least some part of me loved me,
I thought.
Can love just die the way it did for you?
Are you even in pain?
I can't tell any more. I think you just want to leave me behind, because I remind you of the part of you,
That still loves me.
Despite the darkness, despite the pain, despite the sheer stupidity,
That part of you lives.
Maybe I'm just telling myself that,
You've had no trouble moving on.
I remember you were so upset with me once,
For not taking time to move on from you.
Look at you now.
There's no time like the present when you're running from the past.
I want to take a year, to talk.
To tell you, through words and actions, that I'm sorry.
I want to fix this massive hole in my shriveled heart,
The one that you put there.
I want to fix us, this incredible beautiful thing we had.
I want to move on, but the demons of my past are putting walls in front of me.
I break down whenever I think about it for too long, not just about you.
I break down when I remember how my father used to hit me for crying, and then hit me more for crying more.
It was a cycle.
I remember when I thought I couldn't love, so I lied to myself until I could.
I remember cold hands in the dark.
I remember the knife, and the blood.
I remember the numbness of staring into the cosmos, and feeling nothing but terror at the smallness of it all.
I got good at burying it, all of it.
Very, very, very good.
I built a dam to hold my emotions in, with the military discipline Aba taught me.
I learned how to drain them into the ocean, just before it overflowed.
Now...
Now it's overflowing with nothing at all.
Because you keep walking to the gates,
And knocking them down,
Until the things I forgot I could feel are raw and exposed in the light.
You don't want me to die, but I don't think you love me.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
But you abandoned me,
Right in the nick of time.
I meant it when I said "I love you", despite what the dam was hiding.
But you didn't. You couldn't.
You never needed to build a dam,
To keep the feelings from flow,
Because you know what it's like,
To feel, and let go.
I was taught, day and night,
To hold and to hide,
To never let out all the pain that's inside.
I learned how to numb,
That won't go away.
I can't learn to feel,
When I feel more each day.
I want to believe they mean nothing to you,
but you're wrong if you think that I didn't love you.

Those shadowy emissaries
That pass the mind’s great lidless eye
In slow procession through the night
Do fill with color and with sound
The sleeping brain’s vast sweeping bound,
And populate its cityscapes
And alleys with amorphous shapes
That shifting form and countenance
Convey the tides of fleeting thought;
And oft become dark shapes of dread,
Parades of faceless horrors, such
That when I glance their looks are changed –
Each lineament is rearranged –
All meaning or remembrance lost,
Or masked by sweet forgetfulness.
The secret that there lurks within
The labyrinths of memory,
Still tainted by the stench of guilt -
And strengthened by the voice of fear -
Still screams from some dark hidden cell
The lurid blasphemies of hell,
And births itself anew each night,
Each morning dying with the light,
Yet nightly grows in hateful strength,
Corrodes the sturdy locks of will,
And claws through those great iron doors
That lead to waking consciousness.